Caracterización del comportamiento de los sistemas de recursos hídricos en un contexto de cambio climático mediante indicadores.

The availability of water resources could be affected by climate change and with it the degree with which the demands are met. To assess the degree with which the demands are met, indicators that allow identifying water scarcity problems are frequently used. These indicators have been generally developed for hydrological planning analyses in the short and medium term where the effects of climate change are not relevant. Therefore, the capability of the indicators: demand-satisfaction index (I1) and demand-reliability index (I2) in this paper it is analyzed. These indicators were developed to be uses in the short term, and here we focus on their use in systems exposed to climate change (long term conditions). This analysis was performed through the application of these indicators in three Spanish basins (Guadalquivir, Duero and Ebro) and under several reduction levels of the streamflows due to climate change. It was determined that I2 is not capable of capturing the effects of the variability of such streamflows. A new indicator Ip3 was identified, so that keeping the same criteria as I2 to its determination, it is capable of determining the best level with which the demands should be met taking into account the variability of the streamflows. This new indicator was selected out of three proposed indicators. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]